


What He's Doing Now

by Denois



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Typical Swearing, Canon Typical Violence, Future Fic, M/M, Moving, Mutual Pining, Pining, canon typical drinking, minor original character minor injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 04:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15307596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Denois/pseuds/Denois
Summary: A job offer. An actual, bonafide, job offer.Dex could finally stop mooching off of Nursey.No one else lived with a teammate and didn’t either pay half the rent or were in a relationship. Or both.Taking this job would change all that.The job was in Colorado





	What He's Doing Now

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Lukutoukka,](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lukutoukka/pseuds/Lukutoukka) as always.
> 
> I swear I don't listen to country music that much, I actually alternate between the 90's station, the 80's station, and country from the 80s and 90s, but country songs keep being the ones that give me NurseyDex feels. 
> 
> So here's some angst inspired by "What She's Doing Now" by Garth Brooks and, to a lesser extent, "Trying To Get Over You" by Vince Gill.

Dex stared at the email. 

He blinked. It didn’t change. 

A job offer. An actual, bonafide, job offer. 

He didn’t know what to do with this information. He’d braced for another polite rejection. He’d expected it. After seven months of “Thank you for your interest, but the position has been filled,” Dex didn’t even get his hopes up when he got emails anymore. 

But this one was a job offer. 

A good job offer. The kind of money he’d dreamed of during every stupid engineering and programming class.

He could finally stop mooching off of Nursey. 

Sure, Nursey would say it wasn’t mooching. But staying at his place rent free while looking for a job sure seemed like mooching. Even if the place was being paid for with trust fund money from the “asshole side of the family”. 

Dex was pretty sure that was just something Nursey made up to make him feel better about being a mooch. 

No one else lived with a teammate and didn’t either pay half the rent or were in a relationship. Or both. 

Dex rubbed a hand over his face and closed his laptop. So far neither had happened for him, so he was a mooch.

Taking this job would change all that. 

 

Dex cooked. He usually did unless they ordered in. But this time he made Nursey’s favorite. Beef Wellington. And homemade donuts. Nursey loved that shit and Dex almost never made it for him. 

Why didn’t he ever make it for him? It’s not like he had anything better to do. 

But this was a special occasion. So he took the time to make the fiddly, fancy food that Nursey liked. 

He set the table with the good dishes. He never dreamed of having good dishes, but with Nursey, anything was possible. He even lit some candles. 

Nursey, Nursey loved it. He made a joke about working at a publishing company being better with a personal chef at home. They laughed. They talked. They enjoyed the food. They drank wine.

Dex kissed Nursey.

He’d wanted to for years, but this was the first time he gave in to the desire.

He kissed Nursey, standing in Nursey’s kitchen, after Nursey handed him one of the dirty plates to wash.

And Nursey froze. Under his lips, Nursey felt like an ice sculpture, frozen and solid.

When he pulled back, Nursey stumbled backwards. If he hadn’t already passed the plate over to Dex, it would have shattered on the tiles. 

Dex opened his mouth to apologize, but Nursey was already fleeing the room. Moments later, Dex heard the front door open and close. 

Nursey didn’t return before the dishes were all washed and put away. 

Nursey didn’t return before Dex finished packing his two suitcases worth of belongings. 

Nursey didn’t return before Dex bought the cheapest flight to Denver International still available for that night.

Nursey didn’t return before Dex replied to the job offer saying he could start immediately.

Nursey didn’t return before Dex took a subway train and a bus to get to the airport.

Dex texted Chowder from the gate and told him he had a job offer. 

Chowder was happy for him.

Dex told him it was in Colorado. 

* * *

“C, I’m freaking out. I don’t even know where I am right now.”

“Oh my gosh. Ok. Breathe in for three. Hold. Now out for three. Breathe with me. What happened?”

“Dex just kissed me.”

“He...He took you somewhere where you didn’t know where you are and he kissed you?”

“No. He kissed me in our kitchen.”

“I’m confused, Nursey.”

Derek took a few shuddering breaths. “I started at the publishing house. You remember that? My dad bought it for me.” He stopped to grind his teeth. “You and Dex talked me into doing it anyway. Then, tonight, he made fucking beef Wellington. He made fucking homemade donuts. I thought it was for the job, you know?”

“Oh, he made dinner to celebrate?”

“That’s what I thought. It was nice. The good china and candles. And then we were cleaning up and he kissed me.”

“Oh! So it was a date?” It sounded like Chowder muttered something else, something that sounded suspiciously like “finally”, but Nursey let it go.

“I-I guess? I kind of freaked out. I froze and then he pulled back and I could see it in his eyes and I just ran. And I got on a train and now I’m on a bus.”

“Wait! He kissed you and you ran away?” Chowder was shrieking. 

Nursey held the phone away from his ear until the noise quieted down. He let his head roll back on the seat and squeezed his eyes shut. “Yeah. I’m a fucking idiot. I know.”

“Um, Nursey. Not to make you feel worse but….” Chowder hesitated.

“I don’t think I can feel worse, C. Spit it out.”

“Dex just texted me. He got a job offer in Colorado. He says he’s taking it.”

“Fuck! C, I’ll call you back.” Nursey shoved his phone into his pocket and pulled the cord. “Driver! I need to get off now!”

 

The apartment was dark when he got home. All the dishes and candles were put away. Dex’s bed was made. His desk and closet were empty. 

Nursey collapsed on the bed. 

“C. I fucked up. Where did Dex go?”

“I don’t know, Nursey. He just said Colorado.”

* * *

It was remarkably easy to settle into a routine.

Dex rented a house in Louisville. (He told Chowder to say Boulder when he couldn’t remember it wasn’t pronounced the same as the one in Kentucky). 

He took the light rail and a bus to work and back each day with an RTD yearly pass his job provided. He had a Colorado number, and only Chowder had that number.

He put in his time, Monday through Friday. Sometimes late nights, early mornings, weekends. They loved him.

He played with a rec team. He coached a kiddie team.

He tracked Derek Nurse in the news and sometimes social media, when he couldn’t stop himself.

He had Chowder down to one line a conversation telling him that Nursey was ok. 

Dex was on his commute in on Friday when he read the article stating that Derek Nursey’s new book made the bestseller list the previous Sunday. He always left early just in case, so at Union Station, he took extra time and walked over to The Tattered Cover.

It was always a good stop to make. They had good coffee. The historical building and walls of books always reminded him of Nursey, so he avoided it.

He bought Nursey’s book and a coffee and took the next light rail to the DTC.

He stood in the center of the car, rocking with the sway of the train, staring at nothing. Same as every other day. 

Everything was completely normal. His boss was fired, but since he was on the third boss since he joined, that was pretty normal too. He got tickets for the company box for an Avs game, but he’d put in for those over a month ago. His coworkers were going to some bar after work and asked him to join, but he begged off, like normal.

Everything was normal. He didn’t think about Nursey. He didn’t look at the book.

Then he was back home, in his room, laying in bed and thinking about how he should be sleeping because he had the youth team practice in the morning and a rec league game in the afternoon. 

He opened the book. He got as far as the dedication page which just said “Got your back.”

He put the book down. A year. And he still wasn’t over Derek Nurse. Everything was normal.

* * *

Nursey refused to use his publishing house as a shortcut. He used an agent and an alias until his books were accepted. 

The third one published in a year made it to the New York Times Best Seller List. 

Every day, he wondered what Dex was doing. He wondered if Dex had seen his books in a store. He wondered if Dex was still playing hockey. He wondered if Dex was in a relationship.

He tried to call Dex. But someone named Jessica answered and she didn’t know anyone named William Poindexter. Or that’s what she said.

Chowder wouldn’t ever tell him anything. He knew they were still in touch, even though Dex seemed to have dropped out of everyone else’s lives. But C would only tell him that he was doing fine. 

After his book made the bestseller list, Chowder slipped that Dex was in Boulder. 

He started searching local rec league teams, checking rosters and group photos. It took until Friday until he found Dex. A team out of Superior. 

* * *

The game was tight in the third period when Dex’s line partner took a bad hit. It was an accident, guys got competitive but no one was looking to permanently injure someone in a rec league. They were just trying to avoid a worse pile up and Bryan’s knee didn’t turn when he did. So he was out for the game to get it looked at. 

Dex looked over at the bench, expecting to be waved in while another line went out, but, they were kind of light on d-men and the other guys were already done. Instead, he saw a man step on the ice that he didn’t recognize.

He shrugged it off. Sometimes one of the guys would have family or friends come in on a game to relive glory days, or some shit. As long as the guy could hold his own, Dex didn’t care. 

They were tied, and Dex would really like to win before going to watch the Avs play the Falcs. 

Dex shoved that thought out of his mind. He’d be in a box. No one would see him on tv. Neither Jack nor Tater would see him in the stands somehow. There was no reason to worry about the game. 

But coming off a win would really be nice.

So, he didn’t think about how the guy’s skin was the same color as Nursey’s. He didn’t look at him more than to nod to acknowledge his presence.

They played.

And the guy was good. They clicked almost as well as he had with Nursey. He could trust that he’d be there if he passed the puck. He could trust him to protect the forwards. 

But in the last few seconds of the game, they were tied, and the guy passed the puck without looking, then checked the other team’s d-man out of the way and across the goalie’s line of sight in one move. Dex was already following through on the play, the puck barely touching his tape before he sent it into the net, passing inches behind Nursey’s skates.

Because Dex knew. That was his and Nursey’s play. That was Nursey.

The buzzer sounded and his team piled on him for a celly. He couldn’t get untangled. 

By the time he got to the locker room, it was empty except for his usual teammates. Dex pulled his gear off faster than he could ever remember doing it before, but it still took a lot of time. Skates can’t just be stepped out of. 

That was Nursey. Nursey was here. Why was Nursey here?

Did Nursey avoid the celly and ditch him because he’d finally realized he was playing with Will? Was it just a fluke that he picked up a rec game while in town for a book signing or something? 

Dex burst out of the doors to the rink and looked around the parking lot wildly. He wasn’t sure what he was hoping for. Nursey had at least a twenty minute head start. 

Dex let his shoulders slump and closed his eyes. Nursey’d run away from him again. Why would Dex expect anything else? Why had Dex let himself hope that Nursey had actually been there for him?

“Hey.”

Dex was pretty sure he was just hallucinating now. It, honestly, wasn’t the first time he’d thought that he’d heard Nursey’s voice. Still he turned. 

The hand on his arm. The fingers on his cheek. The breath on his lips. This was the most vivid daydream yet, but still, not the first.

“Is this still ok?” 

The words ghosted over his lips and Dex swallowed. This was usually where the illusion broke down. He still couldn’t stop himself from whispering, “Yes.”

Then warm lips were pressed to his, so softly, he thought he was imagining it still, just extending the dream. Until they parted and a tongue slid along his lips and the hands pulled tighter.

Dex’s eyes flew open and he pulled back. 

“Nursey?” He sounded strangled to his own ears. “What are you doing here?”

Nursey’s eyes ran over his face, and he hesitated. “What I should have done a year ago. Unless, oh god.” Nursey ran a hand over his face. “You said it was ok. Was it not ok? Oh god. You have a boyfriend. You thought it was him. I’m so sorry. I’ll… I’ll just go.” 

He made to rush off, but Dex grabbed his arm. “You’re really here. It’s really you.”

“Yeah. It’s really me. God, Dex. I’m so sorry. If you want me to go, I’ll be on a plane tonight. But I really hope we can at least talk.”

“You want to go to an Avs game? I got box tickets. They’re playing the Falcs, if that matters.”

“Uh sure. How’d you get box seats?”

“My job has some pretty great benefits. It was a no brainer to accept once I realized there was no reason for me to stay.” Dex shrugged and let his hand fall away from Nursey’s arm.

Nursey grabbed his hand, lacing their fingers together. “I’m sorry I made you think that. I panicked. I didn’t know.”

“You found me, though.” Dex squeezed his hand. “But, uh, I kind of skipped a shower and I think I should get one before the game tonight. Do you have a rental or…?”

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to see something in particular, throw me an ask @ [sexydexynurse on tumblr](https://sexydexynurse.tumblr.com/).


End file.
